


streetlamp

by bluecarrot



Category: Hamilton - Miranda
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen, Graffiti, Restlessness, ill-advised, modern youth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-06
Updated: 2017-04-06
Packaged: 2018-10-02 09:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10214216
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluecarrot/pseuds/bluecarrot
Summary: "bulb in the streetlamp flickering a little bit i hope the bitch don't burn outit's the last remaining heart and the city in the dark is something you don't wanna know about"(this is me, having feels about my writer-friends. it's not a real dense analogy)





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [holograms](https://archiveofourown.org/users/holograms/gifts), [thinksideways](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinksideways/gifts).



> written 10 March 2017.  
> for the other parts of my Triumvirate, my dears.

His footsteps echoed strangely on the concrete, flat slapping noises matching the rhythm of the backpack jolting against his shoulders, and as always it sent a creepy shivery feeling up his spine though it should have been familiar enough, by now, not to bother him anymore. What _should be_ didn't matter. He dealt with it by moving fast fast until he made it to the park, where the sound was eaten up by dirt and sand and mulch, scattered around a few spare-leaved trees; now he could slow. Slow down, he thought. Slow down, son.

 _Don't call me son --_  

Another block gave away under his feet and the park became city again, all steel frames and broken glass and crumbling brick here and there. This was normal this was right this was _his_ \--

The ground sloped alarmingly and he picked his way down the rocks, moving quick again because the electric eyes of floodlights and cameras pointed this way, his way, directly to the opening of the pipe that fed into the river.

A few feet inside and the world behind him focused to a single narrow aperture of grey light.

His bones relaxed. His grip relaxed on the bag.

Outside was nighttime, broken by lights set up by the government to guard what wasn't theirs, pretending they could keep the city's bones away from the people who lived and ate and shat and died inside its skin. _Keep the city clean_ they said, meaning: Keep it white. Keep it pretty for the tourists. Keep it dead and sterile and shattered by those lights set up to shine in the Section Eight council-housing windows all goddamn night long, floodlights meant to drown folks while they slept

\-- tried to sleep --

Alex had given up trying to sleep.

He dropped the bag to the ground, mindful of the puddles that were a little visible inside the tunnel. It wasn't truly black here. Not like being underground. This was more like shutting your eyes. Some darkness leaked out -- some light leaked in --

He moved quiet by habit so it wasn't until he took out the spray can and stood again that he saw someone else was nearby. The other saw him at the same time. They saw each other.

Neither one moved.

Then Alex laughed. "Nice night."

"I've never seen someone here before," said the boy, unmoving and unmoved. His voice was calm -- something about it reminded Alex of church: it made him feel uneasy and reassured all together.

Alex said: "You here a lot?"

"Often enough."

"Tagging?"

The other didn't reply.

"Come on, man, you know I'm not gonna report you. Where's it at?"

The tunnels were labyrinthine in their complexity, a network of connections linking the older parts of the city with the newer, through that most equitable system of shit. He'd come here for years and had only mapped out a few miles -- though who knew how far it was on the surface, as the crow flew? The rat had a different perspective.

Still no answer.

"Sure," said Alex. "Sure. I'll --"

"Further in. Along the river-wall. You know the big intake pipes, for rain overflow? Along there."

"You any good?"

A flat stare.

Alex liked that. He felt the smile twitching at the edge of his mouth and bit it down. "Let's go and see."

He hadn't really expected his company to stick around but it happened, he stayed, so they went together further in, taking the first branching-off and following north. There was no sound except their feet on the damp pipe inside and, from outside, the rough noise of water passing along the concrete. It hadn't rained in a while, and the river was low, quiet, a white noise. Alex licked his lips. They walked on with silence between them and near-darkness surrounding, and the other went a little forward, leading. Alex couldn't tell if he knew where the hell they were or not. Were they passing under Chestnut Street, with its cluster of row-homes waiting to be gentrified? Or --

The other stopped.

There was a grate overhead and a streetlamp over the grate, flickering a little bit like a beating heart. Not Chestnut, then, but Beaver, and this narrow place turned his again with a beautiful firm sense of grounding. He knew this grate. He'd stood on it and pissed over the low rail into the river; he'd run over it, fleeing the noise of sirens coming up behind; he'd shrank down into his hoodie and walked fast under the light, going home in the cold from some meet-up. Home. He _knew_ this place. He knew it. It was his. They belonged to each other.

And in the light that filtered down, he knew his companion too -- by sight, not name.

Alex said: "I've met you before."

"Here," said the other again, not a reply; he lifted his chin to look at what he'd made.

He did not reach out and touch the wall, but Alex did.

It was a memorial -- a gravestone -- not dead words carved into stone but living paint making cobblestones and plants out of what was smooth featureless concrete. All of it, names and dates and creeping broad-leafed ivy was done in tones of black and grey and white.

It was eerie, unsettling. It fitted the curved low space and the river-sounds and even the dim rattle of noise from the city above them, and it spoke of grief -- a formalized grief. An immobile object, this sadness.

Alex felt sick at the sight. It hurt him. His own pain was hot and raw in his chest -- he couldn't speak about it just like that, like this, so openly -- he couldn't use words and sit down calmly in some social worker's office -- he had to break out and run, pressing out his own strength against the barely-contained tension of crowded streets and stranger's bodies and summertime. And the tunnels at night. He understood in some dim way that he came here because he could not speak these things about his own heat -- but the understanding was all sensation without language. As he couldn't explain it to anyone else, he could not understand it inside himself.

And this goddamn _kid_ was no older than him -- his eyes no less dark here in the streetlight and his mouth parting soft on an intake of breath as he looked up and the way he was so unashamed of creating and feeling and showing --

Alex punched him. The other went down hard into the water-that-was-not-only-water and the pride in Alex was bright enough to send a blackout surge through the city, but the kid was up on his feet a second later, he kicked out Alex's legs beneath him and --

They ended up breathing hard and staring at each other from opposite walls. Not far enough apart, Alex thought: he was still feeling wild and his mouth was bleeding and his side hurt like hell. Why hadn't he pulled the knife?

"You're a fuck," said the other.

"You made that shit? _You?_ "

"Yeah."

"I like it," Alex said, angry: and then he was laughing again. "It's good. It's better than good. You're almost as good as me."

"Fuck you" again, but calmer. A pause. "It's for my parents. They're dead."

"Sorry," said Alex, who was not sorry, who was jealous. He loved his family and hated them and he wasn't sure which was the stronger or more true. The still-healing stripes on his ass should have meant hate, but he always went home again, didn't he? No matter how long he stayed out he always went home.

The other said: "It doesn't matter. It's over. What's your name, man?"

"Alex."

"I'm Burr. You're bleeding, Alex."

"It doesn't matter. Come on, artist. You gotta see what I can do."

**Author's Note:**

> sporadically bringing you the news via tumblr @littledeconstruction


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